Today I celebrated my 1000th day of meditation.
Since the first time I started to learn meditation from Mr. Merta Ada and his assistant, Mr. Putu Dana on August 02, 2009 until today, I have been meditating every single day for 1000 consecutive days! 1000 days in a row!
It is definitely not a small feat! I am feeling proud of myself for achieving it.
How am I different from 1000 days ago?
- I feel that I am more in control of my emotion. After practicing meditation, I become more aware of my emotions. For example, I used to get angry and annoyed easily, but now I start to notice when the feeling of anger arises and there is a pause where I can decide whether I want to continue getting angry or not. Instead of getting angry, I can choose to let it go. I do not say that I don’t have negative feelings anymore, but when negative feelings arise, I have the freedom of choice whether to dwell on it or not.
- I feel more poised in facing problems and challenges. Instead of getting side-tracked by negative emotions when facing problems in life, I can remain calm and focus on finding solutions to the problems.
- My self-confidence increases by becoming a more disciplined person. Doing meditation every day for 1000 days in a row helps me to show and prove to myself that I can be a more disciplined person. I used to get bored and quit easily when establishing a new habit.
- I become more open and accepting towards changes in life. In meditation, I practice to observe sensations in my body and become aware how sensations arise and eventually falling away. As I become more aware of the changes in my own body, I also start to understand changes in life. Life is anicca.
- I feel more compassionate towards other people. I can empathize with people better. Sometimes I can actually feel how others are feeling in that moment.
- My ability to focus and concentrate increases. It really helps me in learning new things. I can learn faster and have deeper understanding.
- I become more sensitive to vibration around me. Sometimes I feel my senses are heightened and I can sense subtle sensations through sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch.
- I used to get migraine headache quite often, but now it rarely happens. I also notice that I do not get sick so easily. I get to notice the symptom early, thus seldom let it go out of hand.
- Somehow I feel that I am luckier. I feel that I tend to get what I want easier than before. I’ve also won a lot of door prizes lately.
How did I manage to achieve this?
- Decide and commit to it. I know that when I let myself skip one day, then I have a tendency to skip more days. I made a commitment to myself, I would meditate no matter what the circumstances might be.
- Keep track. I keep track of my meditation practice using an excel worksheet detailing progress and time. Within 1000 days of meditation, I logged in 73,000 minutes. Tracking helps to motivate me because as the number gets bigger, I certainly do not want to skip meditation and start from 0 again.
- Start small and build from there. At the beginning I could only sit for about 30 minutes, but now I can sit for 60-90 minutes. The longest I sat for meditation was 3 hours.
- Just sit and get started. The hardest part is usually just getting started. When I feel lazy, I tell myself to sit just for 15 minutes, but I usually end up doing at least 30 minutes.
- Celebrate progress and success! Acknowledging my own success motivates me and getting acknowledgment from other people drives it further.
- Have a support system. Having a group of people who are very supportive helps a lot. They help you to be more accountable. I want to thank you members of Bali Usada Cempaka Group, family and friends for being such great supporters!
Where do I want to go from here? Meditation is a journey. I feel I still have a long way to go. I just want to enjoy this journey, one sitting at a time.
The meditation journey continues….
May all beings be happy!
Learn and Grow!
Inge Santoso, B. Com
PMA: Thank you for teaching and sharing with us the wonders and beauty of meditation.
P Putu: Thank you for the commitment and support for all these times. Thank you for the beautiful photos too.
Juniar: Thank you for being a great friend in this journey. We started this journey together and I hope we can continue for as long as we can.
Venna: Thank you for making me go to Bali Usada Tapa Brata and learn meditation for the first time. Thank you for the continuous support so I can go to Tapa Bratas without feeling worry about work.
Yenche: Thank you for being my personal Shiva…destroying the past and transforming me for a better future.
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